Projected Climate: Precipitation and Temperature

 

Authors

  • Mazdak Arabi – Colorado State University
  • Jorge Ramirez – Colorado State University
  • Thomas C. Brown – USDA Forest Service

Purpose

We projected water shortages for 14 climatic futures created by matching two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) with seven GCMs. The GCM runs selected for providing projections of climatic variables corresponding to the radiative forcing trajectories were generated for the “Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project” (CMIP5).

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Description

Bias-corrected spatially-downscaled projections at the ⅛º x ⅛º scale of daily precipitation and minimum (Tmin) and maximum (Tmax ) temperatures from CMIP5 models were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Downscaled Climate and Hydrology Projections website (http://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip_projections/) [U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 2013]. The seven GCMs were chosen based on availability of downscaled precipitation and temperature data and related coarse resolution wind speed data, as summarized next and explained more fully by Mahat et al. [2017].

Climate Model Used

  • BCC-CSM1.1 (BCC)
  • CanESM2 (CAN)
  • CSIRO-Mk3.6.0 (CSIRO)
  • GFDL-ESM2M (GFDL)
  • IPSL-CM5A-LR (IPSL)
  • MIROC-ESM (MIROC)
  • MPI-ESM-LR (MPI)

Analysis Time Periods

  • Past (1986-2010)
  • Near Future (2021-2045)
  • Mid Future (2046-2070)
  • Far Future (2071-2095)
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